A new study of Martian meteorites has uncovered 90 million years worth of information about one of the red planet’s volcanoes – and helped pinpoint which volcano they came from.

Researchers used advanced mass spectrometry techniques to learn more about the origins of six meteorites known as ‘nakhlites’ – pieces of Martian terrain which were blasted from the face of the red planet by an impact event 11 million years ago, then drifted through space before landing on Earth.

Nakhlite meteorites are the second most common type of Martian meteorites. Three of the meteorites were found in Antarctica, one in the USA, one in northwestern Africa, and one in Egypt.

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Their findings, which show that the Martian volcano erupted at least four times over the course of 90 million years, are published in a new paper in the journal Nature Communications.

The research was conducted by scientists at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, the Universities of Glasgow and St Andrews, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Natural History Museum in London.

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Dr Benjamin Cohen, of the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre and the University of Glasgow’s School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, is the paper’s lead author.

He said said: “We know from previous studies that the nakhlite meteorites are volcanic rocks, and the development of age-dating techniques in recent years made the nakhlites perfect candidates to help us learn more about volcanoes on Mars.”